There was a popular cops-and-robbers TV show back in the fifties, Dragnet, where Sgt. Joe Friday was famous for saying, "...the facts ma'am. Just the facts." He wasn't interested in hearing opinions or innuendo, just the facts.
Fast forward 60 years and we seem to have forgotten Sgt. Joe's mantra. Today President Trump has made "fake news" his mantra. He implies that everything that comes out of the news media, especially ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post...virtually everyone except his favorite, FOX News...is "fake", not true, a lie. Dismissing the press en masse like this is dangerous.
The true problem lies between our own ears. We hear factual news and the accompanying editorial and believe it all or not at all. We have become such shallow thinkers we don't know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. And to make things worse, most of us only read/listen to whatever reinforces what we want to believe. Opposing views are not tolerated.
For example, the news might report that John Smith was caught on surveillance video robbing a convenience store and is now in custody. The police have video and the eyewitness account of the clerk who was robbed, and the perp is indeed behind bars. So far, this is a fact. But then a conservative news outlet might add "...and now this vicious predator is off the streets" while a liberal outlet might say "...he looked to be homeless and hungry".
If you've ever been on a jury panel you'll remember the judge asking if you've seen news coverage of the alleged crime and have a pre-conceived opinion of guilt or innocence. This is how our inability to separate fact from opinion can skew justice.
The truth is, most serious investigative journalism today seems to originate from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and just a few others. The facts they uncover and print or put on the air must be corroborated or else they're setting themselves up for a massive libel suit. Unless their facts can be credibly refuted with real, conflicting evidence, they should be believed. What they write on their editorial page is just for entertainment value.
If we can't learn this difference, our long-term democracy is in jeopardy. Wise up people, or get run over!
S
Unfortunately social media has made it so easy to spread fake news and it's only getting worse, like Facebook's decision to cut back on news in people's news feeds and rely more on your "friends" so instead of hearing from CNN you'll hear from your crazy Uncle Gary that Bat Boy is selling uranium to the Moon Men to destroy America!
ReplyDeleteTrump's followers are so indoctrinated that all he has to say is 'the moon landings were fake news.' and his followers believe him. We're past the point of sitting these people down and telling them what the truth is...they don't care. It's the cult of the personality time, just like Hitler and Stalin, but with a different government type that adapts. He thinks all he needs is his base, roughly 35 percent of the GOP voting base. He can con/cheat the rest. He can call his followers to the street, armed to argue an election that went against him.
ReplyDeletewe really don't know the times we live, we really don't.
Unfortunately, cable news has blurred the difference between news and opinion. And I don't mean just Fox News. As someone says, often, "sad."
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